The Foundations of Teaching for Learning programme is for anyone who is teaching, or who would like to teach, in any subject and any context - be it at school, at home or in the workplace. With dynamic lessons taught by established and respected professionals from across the Commonwealth, this eight course programme will see you develop and strengthen your skills in teaching, professionalism, assessment, and more. As you carry on through the programme, you will find yourself strengthening not only your skills, but your connection with colleagues across the globe. A professional development opportunity not to be missed.
This course will emphasise what you can do to act professionally. This includes developing your own philosophy of teaching and making sure that you continue to improve your knowledge and skills. It also considers what it means to be part of a community of professionals, working with others to improve what happens in your school, community and profession.
Enhance your course by joining the Commonwealth teaching community on our website, Facebook and Twitter.

검토

R

A wonderful course which had all the answers to my questions! It’s a very informative and enriching content and I really enjoyed the course.

EM

Nov 03, 2016

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

There was so much to learn on how to build up my teaching career. It was quite enlightening. Thanks to the team for this course!

수업에서

What it means to be a professional

This week we will consider what it means to be a teaching professional. We will ask you to think about your own beliefs about teaching and education in light of the expectations that society has for teachers. We will also reflect on the importance of the teacher and the school to the achievement and development of each child. At the end of this week you will have engaged in a personal reflective process to assist you to think about teaching, what is expected of teachers, and what teaching entails. This is something that we will continue to examine and develop in the remaining parts of the course.

강사:

Professor Stephen Dinham

Professor John MacBeath

스크립트

[MUSIC] Welcome back everybody, to course seven, Being a Professional, week one, What It Means to Be a Professional. And lecture two, today, is about what society expects of teachers. In the previous lecture we talked about the fact that society has high expectations for members of professions. In the case of teaching, we're going to now look at what these expectations include. The first expectation is that teachers occupy a position of trust. Parents, caregivers, the community generally hand over their children for a large portion of their lives to teachers and to schools. And as a result, they have high expectations, as we'll see, for both their teachers and for their children in that situation of schooling. Parents when they're asked about what they really want for their children at school, tend to talk about three things. They want their children to be happy. They want them to be safe. And they want them to be well educated. These are the basis for what we have as expectations for teachers. But we're going to look, in much more detail, about what it means, both to be happy and safe, but also to be well educated. You have a blog from Julia Thompson, in which she examines what parents and guardians, or caregivers, expect from teachers. When you view this in a moment, one thing that will probably strike you is how long the list is. There really are a long list of expectations. One of the things I want you to consider is how realistic is it for society to expect these things of teachers. One of the problems that we've faced, over time, is that every time there is a social problem in society that arises, it tends to be given to schools to solve. As a result, while schools have a reasonable expectation, to educate, there's a whole range of social expectations placed on teachers and schools. So, for example, we now expect teachers to be, to some degree, social workers, to solve some of the problems of society that families or communities either can't deal with or won't deal with. When we have a look at the list from Julia Thompson on these expectations, see if there's anything missing that you think is important. You may well be a parent yourself with children at school, how realistic is that list of expectations? Now, we're going to look at an example from a school. This is a faith based school, St. Luke's. And, on that link that you have, there's a list of expectations that the school has elaborated on for teachers. Again it's a lengthy list, it covers a variety of things. For example, there are the academic responsibilities, but there also what we would call pastoral care, in terms of looking after students as people and treating them in certain ways. There's also a whole range of responsibilities in terms of teachers ongoing professional learning, and in working with others. Examine that particular document and reflect upon it. One of the important things that comes through when examining such expectations is that we really are trying to prepare young people to lead happy, productive and successful lives. It's a very important point that good teaching opens the doors of opportunity for young people. And we'll look at this in more detail later, but basically the school education that young people get sets them up for life, and when we look at the list of expectations for teachers that are held up by our society and the schools that employ them, we see that these are very, very important expectations or outcomes that we are hoping to achieve for every child. I'd also like you to rethink a point that I made earlier, which is how reasonable is it for parents to expect teachers to raise their children for them. We know that many parents have difficult circumstances. There may only be one parent in the family, there may be many. There may be many children. There may be poverty. In many cases, it's left to teachers and schools to remedy some of the products of disadvantage. And this as it should be, but the key question here is, can these expectations become unreasonable? Another issue that we'll talk about later is, what happens when these expectations don't match with what the school itself is trying to achieve. For example, many parents who brought there children to succeed to a very, very high level. That isn't always possible. They may wish that their child is highly successful in sport, culture or the arts. Again, this is not always possible. So, the issue of unrealistic expectations is important. But there's also the expectations that are sometimes too low. And sometimes, teachers in schools are at fault, because they set low expectations for students, because of the area they come from, their cultural or religious background, whether they're from an area with high unemployment, and so forth. So, it's very important not to stereotype students, and not to, in a way, limit their opportunities through having very, very low expectations for them. Now, I want to return to the issue of families, and communities, and caregivers as partners in schooling. We know from research and from experience that where parents and communities are respected by schools, trusted, listened to, and there's meaningful cooperation. This can result in the enhanced outcomes for students. And when we say outcomes we're not just talking about academic outcomes. We're talking about personal outcomes and social outcomes. But it can be a challenge. I would like you to look at the YouTube clip "On the Same Page: Families and Schools as Partners." And in looking at that video, I want you to think about the advantages of having parent and community members as partners in schooling, and what this partnership might look like. And think about the sorts of things we would like parents and community members to be involved with, and maybe those things we would have some concerns about them being involved with. We'll pick up that concept later on. So, how does parents and community members being involved in schooling, influence positively student outcomes? Also, consider what are the problems that we experience in obtaining community involvement? Which parents, for example, which family groups, which cultural groups are involved and which ones aren't? And what are the reasons behind this? What are the difficulties in enhancing community involvement in schooling? In your school, reflect upon the degree to which families and community members are involved in the education of their children. What forms does this take? Is it what we would call possibly tokenistic, where parents' involvement is limited to certain activities, helping around the school in various ways, attending certain school functions. Or is it more meaningful involvement? For example, in discussions about the school, and what it's trying to achieve in areas of the curriculum, in areas of things like the responsibility for students to become active, involved members of society. So, think about in your school, the degree of involvement and the type of involvement and any barriers to what we would call authentic or meaningful involvement in the school. Now, you may well say in some cases parents don't want involvement. They are happy to leave the education of their children to the school. But in other case is there may well be parents who feel excluded. To return to an earlier issue, is it reasonable for parents to expect the teacher and the school to do their job for them? In our next season, we'll now look at the issue of the importance of the teacher to student outcomes and development, a very important part of being a professional and what we are trying to achieve as teachers. [MUSIC]